Tag Archives: ken dubow

Pickle Magazine, a film industry publication based in India about all things Bollywood and now, Hollywood, recently asked producer and sales agent, Ron Lavery to interview me and ten others for its American Film Market edition. After reading all eleven interviews, it’s clear that none of us agree on what the long term and short term effects will be on the film business given the latest seismic shocks (and those to come) to the overall global economy. Here’s my take:

Lavery: How do you think the current economic situation will effect AFM business this year?

Me:The entertainment business, like most businesses runs on credit. Although there appears to be a credit thaw . . . if the financial environment gets worse or even if it continues to improve at its current pace, the credit freeze will definitely affect AFM business this year. With limited access to the credit markets, buyers will be less inclined to close deals and will have limited buying power in the short term. Over the longer term though – and I’ve already witnessed it first hand – private equity will step in to do more traditional debt financing (albeit at a premium) if the banks are unable to do so.

Lavery: Do you foresee any mergers between distribution companies?

Me: Yes. Although mergers are already a part of the overall trend towards the consolidation of the business, the current economic climate will only accelerate this process.

Lavery : Are there any news ways of financing films on the horizon?

Me: Over the last decade and longer, people have been and continue to try to build a better film financing business model as the economics of the film business shift. This process will likely [continue to] shift at a tectonic pace especially if credit remains tight, the costs of production continue to rise and equity sources dry up. With the Internet as a potentially new distribution platform with untested sources of revenue based on either a subscription model (which won’t work) and advertising (which might work if the revenues become more meaningful), Internet exploitation windows may become a more significant revenue source for producers and distributors.

This is especially true now that that the technology exists to “geo-filter” the exploitation of films on the Internet on a territory by territory basis.

Electronic sell-through of video units of films may increase the value of minimum guarantees since the Internet will allow producers to have greater access to mass markets for their films during the video exploitation window. In some cases, producers may be able to directly distribute their films without an actual distributor just as artists have in the music business, thereby saving on costs by eliminating the middleman.

What is even more interesting is that short films are rising in commercial appeal.

Long relegated to film festivals, new distribution opportunities have developed on the Internet and on mobile phone and Ipod technologies for shorts. As a consequence, producing shorts are good for business since they have lower budgets and can now attract marquee talent who view internet exploitation as a cutting edge business opportunity that provides potentially great exposure with minimal effort.

Lavery: Will the economic crisis effect government subsidies and tax credits?

Me: With the drop in income here in the United States (and a corresponding drop in tax revenues), each locality is looking for new ways to attract revenues, jobs and new industry to each of the States but [they are also] forced to contend with a corresponding drop in tax revenues by virtue of providing the tax subsidy itself.

Meanwhile India, the Middle East, Eastern Europe and China will continue to be appealing places to produce films which might not provide tax credits per se but . . . increase the potential bang for the buck.

Lavery: Any thoughts on the enormous impact Indian film companies seem to be having on American film companies?

Me: While the current economic climate is adversely affecting the global economy, India is viewed by many in the entertainment business as a potential source of new financing as opposed to talent. The good news for Indian film companies is that if India is the source of financing, then there might be increased leverage to utilize Indian talent in American films.

The other factor is the increased reliance on foreign sales of American films which right now hovers around 60-65% of the budget of the typical mainstream American film. This in turn requires . . . increased reliance on foreign talent in an effort to increase the appeal to foreign audiences.

Lavery: Any thoughts on Indian financing opportunities like the recent Spielberg-DreamWorks deal?

Me: The Spielberg-Reliance deal is viewed by many as the high water mark of Indian investment in film. The good news is that other film funds do not and will not require market capitalization to this extent. I expect the formation of several Indian and Asian based funds with more modest capitalization ranging from US$35 million to US$80million in the near term provided economic conditions do not seriously deteriorate.

gosh but like we spent hundreds of years looking up at the stars and wondering “is there anybody out there” and hoping and guessing and imagining

because we as a species were so lonely and we wanted friends so bad, we wanted to meet other species and we wanted to talk to them and we wanted to learn from them and to stop being the only people in the universe

and we started realizing that things were maybe not going so good for us– we got scared that we were going to blow each other up, we got scared that we were going to break our planet permanently, we got scared that in a hundred years we were all going to be dead and gone and even if there were other people out there, we’d never get to meet them

and then

we built robots?

and we gave them names and we gave them brains made out of silicon and we pretended they were people and we told them hey you wanna go exploring, and of course they did, because we had made them in our own image

and maybe in a hundred years we won’t be around any more, maybe yeah the planet will be a mess and we’ll all be dead, and if other people come from the stars we won’t be around to meet them and say hi! how are you! we’re people, too! you’re not alone any more!, maybe we’ll be gone

but we built robots, who have beat-up hulls and metal brains, and who have names; and if the other people come and say, who were these people? what were they like?

the robots can say, when they made us, they called us discovery; they called us curiosity; they called us explorer; they called us spirit. they must have thought that was important.

and they told us to tell you hello.

So, I have to say something.

This is my favorite post on this website.

I’ve seen this post in screenshots before, and the first time I read it, I cried. Just sat there with tears running down my face.

Because this, right here, is the best of us, we humans. That we hope, and dream of the stars, and we don’t want to be alone. That this is the best of our technology, not Terminators and Skynet, but our friends, our companions, our legacy. Our message to the stars.

I’m flat out delighted, and maybe even a little honored, that I get to reblog this.